After a very long flight and dicey layover in Tokyo, we arrived as bleary-eyed time travelers—August 1st never happened, you guys!—very late at night in Osaka. Thankfully, Christine had had the foresight to suggest that we book a single night right next to the airport so we could find our bearings before venturing out into Osaka proper the next morning, which I’m very grateful we did. I was not ready to tackle the tangle of Japanese trains just yet; plus, the breakfast buffet was out of this world. Waking up to this view wasn’t too shabby either.
We spent a lot of time on public transport in Japan. Train, tram, shinkansen, subway, bus, monorail—we rode just about every mode and model, and if I really wanted to, I could probably list every company and line too, because they’re all very different. The JR is not the Metro and the Metro is not the Nankai Electric, etc. etc. etc.
This train is the Limited Express Rapi:t, which is the train I thought we’d be riding into town, but it’s a different reservation, so we rode the local line instead. I learned the hard way that every little detail counts when getting around this country. Line, platform, operator, departure time, and even the car you get into really matters—you can’t just assume you’ll be able to hop on the next one that comes along—especially in Tokyo. But we’re not there yet. We haven’t even seen the real Osaka at this point.